Chile

San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

I decided to do the alternate crossing into Bolivia by going west to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile, rather than going north to the Argentine border crossing into Bolivia. The reasoning was fairly simple. I wanted to do the Tour del Sur of southern Bolivia and it is a little more direct to do it this way.

some reconstructed buildings

still lots of original ruins...

For a bit of sight seeing on the way, I visited the town of Tilcara, a couple of hours north of Salta, where there are some Inca period ruins of a townsite at the top of a hill.  Some of the buildings have been rebuilt as they were likely originally constructed.

interior showing how only
rock and cactus were used

I have read some reviews that are not full of praise about the reconstruction, but I found it very nice to see and be in the actual buildings rather than having to use imagination whilst viewing lines of rock piles. For the purists, there were still plenty of lines of rock piles still untouched. On the return trip I unexpectedly got to visit the town of Purmamarca which is famous for it seven coloured hill.

Purmamarka's hill
(or at least part of it)

Next morning, bright and 1/2 hour early, I was at the bus station for my trip over the Andes to Chile. Fifty minutes later and I not having seen my bus, I was getting worried.  If you haven't been to a bus station in Latin America (and likely a whole lot of other places) you can't appreciate the uncertainty involved in catching a bus from a company you don't know to a destination you don't know. The buses do display a destination, but it is the last town on the route, so if you are going somewhere closer, you guess, or ask (if you can). The station may also have up to 30 platforms and you don't always know which platform it is arriving to, so you have to watch them all. On the upside, the bus company logo is usually well marked on the bus so that makes things a bit easier, but on the downside, the buses come and go every 10 minutes or so. Long story short, I went to a ticket counter where I knew the girl spoke good english and asked if she could make a phone call for me.

People live here! Lots of them.

Instead she closes her booth and takes me upstairs to the control tower (which I didn't even know existed) and explains my situation. After some back and forth, she turns to me and says "Its just late" and then with a laugh, adds, "Like everything in Argentina!". The controllers then go on to offer that I should stay upstairs with them and they will tell me when my bus does arrive. The girl then gives me a hug and goes back to her booth, and when my bus arrives some time later, one of the controllers comes out, tells me, gives me a warm handshake and pat on the back and off I go, thinking very simply, "Wow!" Everyone I have met has been so friendly and helpful, it is truly something.

...gravel for as far as you can see

...salt flats

As for the trip itself, it was an odd mixture of exhilarating and mind numbingly boring. We went back to Purmacara again, so I got to see the hill of seven colors in the morning sun this time, and shortly after this we began to climb. Much like the climb to Cachi a few days ago, except this time we went to 4300 meters and then slid to 3500m (and then to 4000m and finally to 4400m) for the long and sometimes very dull trip across the plateau. This time we were too high for much in the way of vegetation  but amazingly enough there we people living here and a lot more Lamas and even a few Alpacas.

and after the gravel...volcanoes

To break up these study (nap) times traveling hundreds of kilometers across this barren gravel yard, there were hills and hoodoos and canyons and more switchbacks and salt lakes and then volcanoes.

and people live here also

Perfectly shaped, conical, snow topped volcanoes everywhere. And then the decent down. From 4400m to 3700m, not with switchbacks this time but rather 50km in a relatively straight line down a plain tilted at  10 or 15 degrees. Although the driver kept the bus in third gear the whole time, those brakes got a good workout!

...and just a few more switchbacks

Now I am in San Pedro de Atacama, a rather dusty, windy town in the middle of nowhere with a really big reputation a a tourist destination. In fact the entire town is pretty much made up of tour operators, hostels, hotels, restaurants and artisan shops. The town center is rather quaint however with the plaza park, church and white painted adobe buildings. And when I get tired of looking at the town, I turn around and gaze at the all the snow topped volcanoes for a while.
I didn't book my tour to Uyuni in time however, so I have to spend an extra day here anticipating all those lagunas, geysers, arbols de piedra, and of course, salars! The final sight being the most spectacular, the Salar de Uyuni.

--Section;820km -Trip total; 23928km